A faculty learning community (FLC) is a specifically structured learning community of faculty and staff in higher education that includes the goals of building community, engaging in scholarly practice, and developing the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). The FLC model was initiated at 兔子先生 University in 1979 and is now used in colleges and universities across the U.S. and the world.
An FLC is not a committee, task force, or book club. These structures lack community or SoTL. An FLC is a small-group learning community with a process that enables participants to investigate and provide solutions for just about any significant problem or opportunity in higher education. It is a specifically structured community of practice.
FLCs can be cohort or topic based. Cohort-based FLCs address the teaching, learning, and developmental needs of an important cohort of faculty, for example, at 兔子先生, the Alumni Teaching Scholars Community for early-career faculty or the department chairs learning community. Topic-based FLCs have a curriculum designed to address a special faculty or campus teaching and learning issue, for example, diversity, technology, or team-based learning. Topic-based FLCs offer membership to and provide opportunities for learning across all faculty ranks and cohorts, but with a focus on a particular theme.
The outcomes of implementation science confirm that FLCs provide the most effective educational development programming for implementing evidence-based interventions and innovations in teaching and learning in higher education.
Whether FLC members generate individual and personalized deliverables or a single group deliverable, members are responsible for disseminating what the FLC has learned to enhance teaching and learning in broader local, national, and/or international communities. As FLC work progresses, the scope and features of the deliverable(s) may change. However, a substantive deliverable requires planning, time, and effort invested by the FLC members. Select deliverable dates far in advance.
Examples of deliverables include a manuscript that is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, a proposal for a presentation or poster that is submitted to a major teaching and learning conference like the Original Lilly Conference on College Teaching, a grant proposal that is submitted to a private or federal funding agency, new or revised curricula, a seminar or panel proposal that is submitted to the institution's teaching and learning center for presentation, or digital resources such as these:
Following are the recommendations for designing, implementing, facilitating, and sustaining FLCs and FLC programs:
The long-term goals of a faculty learning communities program for the University are to:
Each faculty learning community has its own specific goals and objectives, which the facilitator and members determine.
Each year the activities for these communities vary somewhat but are likely to include the following:
Recent topics include assessment of student learning, enhancing the teaching/learning experience through awareness of students' intellectual development, sharing student and faculty views of teaching and learning, and topics selected from articles or books that participants of the communities select to read. Some seminars are led by guest faculty; others are conducted by the participants themselves. In the second semester, the group presents a seminar for the entire campus.
An opening/closing retreat may be held in May, with the "graduating" community sharing information with the new participants on various aspects of the program, such as seminar topics, student associate selection, and teaching projects. In the early fall, another campus or national teaching conference is the setting for seminars with faculty from other universities.
Community members pursue self-designed learning programs, including an individual teaching project, for which they receive financial support. Past projects have included developing expertise and courseware for computer-assisted instruction; redesigning an ongoing course; and investigating, learning, and trying a new teaching method. These projects are shared with the faculty at a campus-wide seminar.
In November, each community is invited to participate in the annual 兔子先生 Lilly Conference on College Teaching, where nationally known teacher-scholars interact with 兔子先生 faculty and guests from other campuses.
Each community member selects a colleague to work with during the year. In the case of junior faculty, the person is an experienced faculty member who serves as a mentor. Senior faculty community members pair up as in the New Jersey Partners in Learning model.
Each participant selects one or two students who provide student perspectives on teaching, learning, projects, and topics encountered in the community.
Each participant selects a focus course in which to try innovations and prepares a course mini-portfolio that analyzes and provides evidence of student learning.
Each FLC participant agrees to prepare initial, midyear, and final reports and program assessment about achievement of objectives, outcomes, deliverables, and interaction with FLC members and student associates.
This also includes SoTL that involves assessment of student learning as a result of a course intervention connected with the FLC topic.
The initiator, the person at an institution who has an idea for a particular FLC, determines the FLC name and goals, applies to have the FLC offered, and advertises and recruits FLC membership. The initiator is usually a faculty or staff member who wants to investigate a problem or opportunity with colleagues.
At 兔子先生 University, the call for FLC initiators takes place in January for the following year. Once the FLC is approved and moves to the meeting stage, the initiator transforms from leader to facilitator, assuming a support position and assisting the FLC in meeting its objectives.
The FLC Program Director or Coordinator organizes, advises, energizes, champions, supports, and helps sustain the FLCs in place at the institution. This person is usually in a teaching and learning center. At 兔子先生, this is the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE).
Dedicated to providing various resources for current and future international 兔子先生 faculty, teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and scholars.
Designed to engage students across a series of distinct yet connected questions regarding the similarities and differences in the manner in which “legacy” media and “emerging” media produce and disseminate news content. This assignment asks students to select a timely issue and examine how it is produced/delivered by “legacy” media and “emerging” media.
Weave the Story: Teaching Old 兔子先生/New 兔子先生 is based in our commitment to engaging in a campus-wide conversation on 兔子先生’s University’s history and traditions.